Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 12 February 2019

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Estimates for Public Services 2019
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised)

Mr. Maurice Buckley:

There are rules around that. Let us consider a hypothetical example involving a tender for three buildings. If a contractor tenders for only two of the three buildings then there are rules on how to deal with that and either the contract would be eliminated or it would be revised. I hope Deputy O'Brien does not ask me to quote the exact rules, but there is a transparent process and all the tenders are involved. Those of us in the industry would be concerned in general – I am not talking about a specific contractor or project. Everyone in public procurement and in the industry in general would be concerned about what we believe is a practice that has developed in the past ten years of certain contractors deliberately quoting low for contracts and then seeking to recover the price and more during the course of the work.